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Very Rare – the first edition of ‘Monzongo’, “the most popular anti-slavery production staged across the Netherlands until well into the nineteenth century”, authored by Nicolaas Simon van Winter, the eminent merchant, poet and dramatist who became an ardent Abolitionist upon witnessing the brutal Dutch crackdown which ended the Berbice Slave Rebellion (1763-4), in modern-day Guyana; the play concerns an…

The most extraordinary, extensive and data-rich manuscript on slavery we have ever encountered – being an original Cuban ‘registro’ (registry book) of ‘licensed’ slaves composed by a slave ‘registrador’s (registrar’s) office, likely either Havana or Matanzas, in 1855-56 (from December 1854 onwards, all slaves in Cuba were required to have a ‘cédula’, that acted as both a license and an…

An original manuscript contract for the sale of 35 named slaves, sold for the price of £1800 by the Irishman Patrick Coningham, based in Union Island, in the Grenadines, to his brother Walter Coningham, one of St. Vincent’s preeminent sugar planters and the proprietor of he the well-known Colonarie Vale estate; the contract, which was signed sealed and witnessed in…

8° (22 x 14.5 cm): [2], 82 pp., bound in modern marbled paper wrappers (Very Good, uncut, overall clean, just the odd light spot, some light toning to last leaf).

  An award- winning radio play in German language by a Slovenia-born author on the absurdity of the dictatorship with a photomontage cover.

  A short novel with a Futurist cover was published in Slovenian language in Fascist Italy by one of the last persisting Slavic publishing companies, under Italian censorship, in 1933.

  A short novel with a Futurist cover was published in Slovenian language in Fascist Italy by one of the last persisting Slavic publishing companies, under Italian censorship, in 1930.

  A first edition of a novel by France Bevk was published under difficult circumstances by one of the last Slavic publishing houses persisting on the Italian Fascist territories. The text inside is Slovenian, but the main title had to be translated to Italian and the author's name has been Italianised. 

  A first edition of a novel by France Bevk was published under difficult circumstances by one of the last Slavic publishing houses persisting on the Italian Fascist territories. The cover was designed by a futurist painter Julče Božič.

An anthology of Slovenian modern poetry, concentrated around a liberal student newspaper Tribuna, between years 1965 and 1970. Small 8°, 100 pp., [2 pp.], original wrappers with lettering (minor staining and age-toning, spine slightly age-toned with small tears, but overall ina good condition).

  8°, 163 pp., original illustrated card wrappers, dedication by the author in black ink on the title page (wrappers with minor age-toning and tiny tears in margins, otherwise in a good condition).  

  8°,  177 pp., [5 pp.], contemporary red half calf, grey cloth boards, red patterned endpapers, red head, deckled fore-edge and tail, spine with gold lettering and raised bands (Very Good).  

  12 °. Engraved frontispiece, 104 pp., 14 interleaved aquatint illustrations, contemporary dark brown goat with linear blind tooling in margins, small old round paper stamp in the upper corner of the front board, patterned endpapers, red edges (binding slightly worn on the edges, tiny cracks in hinges of endpapers, deaccessioned small library stamps, light water-staining in the first part…

  An uncommon Bulgarian translation of Jean-Marie Guyau’s work on female emancipation and religion, printed in Varna in 1894   8°, 32 pp., [2 pp.], original pink wrappers with lettering, unbound as originally published (slightly stained, otherwise a good, partly uncut example).      

  A curious document on a drunken incident from 1916 offers an ephemeral insight into the life of soldiers of the Russian Caucasus Army during WWI.   Typescript with manuscript additions and a stamp on both sides, 20 x 18 cm (7,8 x 7 inches) (folds and hardly noticeable worm holes, but otherwise in a good condition).  

  A fine, uncut example of the first edition of a famous Slovenian short story Kurent by one of the county’s greatest authors - Ivan Cankar.   8°, [4 pp.], 81 pp., [3 pp.], original patterned wrappers (old price, written in pencil on the cover, minor foxing to the first and last pages, tiny chips around the spine, but overall…

  Small 4°, 141 pp. with black and white illustrations, original red cloth decoration with ornaments and lettering, original patterned endpapers (old signature on the top of the frond loose endpaper, otherwise in a good condition).  

  12°. 172 pp., [4 pp.], original green cloth binding with white decoration and gilt lettering, original patterned endpapers (old owner’s signature on the first page, tiny cracks to the hinges of the front endpapers, otherwise in a good, read condition).  

  [The Wreath of Innocence, or Prayers and Lessons Needed for Young Christians, to Keep Their Innocence]   16°, 728 pp., [4 pp.], woodcut frontispiece, contemporary brown calf with gilt decoration and lettering on the spine, original patterned endpapers, red edges (Sporadic tiny worm holes in inner white margins, binding with minor wear, but overall in a good and clean…

  Offset lithograph, 95 x 64 cm (37.4 x 25.2 inches), (minor abrasions at edges, otherwise in a good condition).  

  First post WWII detailed statistical atlas of Slovenia with black and white photographs, was published by the Statistical Office of the People’s Republic, as a basis for a national strategy for economic development.

8°, 217 pp., [2 pp.] blank, original grey cloth binding with black lettering, original illustrated dustjacket (minor staining and foxing, dust jacked slightly dusty and reinforced in the margins with restored tiny tears and loss of paper, otherwise in a good condition).

Original book design with photomontage   2 volumes, each 8°, 96 pp., 97-208 pp., original illustrated wrappers (minimal wear and foxing, otherwise in a good condition)

  A stellar example of a highly decorative children’s book by a Slovenian author Fran Milčinski was designed by a Jože Plečnik’s student Marija Grafenauer (Vogelnik).

  The only two issued two numbers of a scarce Expressionist magazines by a group of Slovenian artists, writers and musicians, were a predecessor to more famous avant-garde magazine Tank.

  An early groundbreaking thick richly illustrated guidebook for Slovenian immigrants to the United States, was written by a Slovenian priest Jurij Matej Trunk, and includes numberless original drawings and photographs of people and landscape by a Slovenian immigrant and photographer Anton Terbovec. It was published in Klagenfurt, Austria, in Slovenian language in 1912. 

A collection of Slovenian national and famous poems was translated into German during WWI, to encourage the Slovenian soldiers, who were fighting for the Austrian emperor against Italians. This is a rare luxury edition, which was issued on hand-made paper in 50 examples only, all of which were signed by the editor and translator Dr. Rudolf von Andrejka and given…

  [The Brazilian Letter. A Letter of the Holy Father to Brazilian Bishops on the Catholic Action]   A rare mimeographed pamphlet with an encouraging message to the heads of the Catholic church by Pope Pius XI was probably published by the Slovenian political and war refugees in a DP camp in Austria in 1946.   8°. 28 pp., [2…

  A uniquely well preserved example of a short novel with fragile wrappers, published by Slovenians under the censorship of the Fascist Italy   8°, 134 pp., with black and white vignettes, [2 pp.], original illustrated wrappers (old owner’s signature in black ink on the title page, tiny tears in margins, overall in a good condition).

A Slovenian novel with a stunning expressionistic design by an academic painter Tone Kralj was published by a Slovenian press in Trieste, which would in the next years became one of the centers of the Italian Fascism.   8°, 198 pp., later three-quarter dark red linen binding with marbled boards and original cover pasted on the front board (minor staining,…

  The first book on socialism, published in the Ottoman Empire, in the year of the foundation of the Ottoman Socialist Party.   8°, 124 pp., [4 pp.] index and blank, later marbled wrappers (missing front original wrapper, very light staining, otherwise in a good condition).  

  French Colonization of Tunisia Trade with Central Africa Algiers Imprint   [Society of Physical, Natural and Climatological Sciences of Algiers. 19th meeting of Members of Scientific Society at the Sorbonne. Algeria, Tunisia and Central Africa. Creation of a Regular Caravan Service Between Djerba and Central Africa].   A rare pamphlet in French language, printed in Algiers and published in…

8°. 334 pp., [1 p.], 20th century cloth with gilt lettering on the cover and spine (sheets with light foxing and staining, old hand-written price on the inner side of the back cover, overall in a good condition).

  An excellent little treatise on the appearance of the Solar Eclipse of July 28, 1851 over the Austrian Habsburg Empire, illustrated with a custom map - extremely rare – 1 of only 2 known examples.

[Taht-ı Himâye-i Mufahhame-i Hazret-i Padişahi'de Muharebe-i Ahire Evlad-ı Şüheda ve Ma'lulin-i Askeriyye İane Sergisi. İş bu sergide bulunan eşyadan boyalı olarak resim ve tab'a en ziyade elverişli olan bazı eşya-ı nefisenin resimleri havi albüm. Under the Patronage for His Imperial Majesty the Sultan. Relief Sale for the Invalides and Famileis of the Victims of the Last War]   A colourful…

  An original manuscript sketch map of the Grahamstown-Great Fish River region of South Africa, the strategically critical ‘Eastern Frontier’ of the Cape Colony, made immediately in the wake of the Sixth European-Xhosa War (1834-6).

An amazing survivor, being an original manuscript caricature drafted during the Eighth European-Xhosa War (1850-3), one of the century-long series of brutal conflicts between Dutch, and more recently British, forces and the formidable Xhosa nation for control over the Eastern Cape Frontier, South Africa’s ‘Wild, Wild East’; involving a very clever use of imagery and dialogue, the caricature shows two…

A map from Umûm Vilayât-ı Şâhâneyi Hâvi Küçük Atlas - Umûmî Küçük Atlas (General Small Atlas)   Chromolithograph. 9 x 13,5 cm (3.5 x 5.3 inches).

  Rare – an issue of the Afrikaans-language almanac issued by the government of the South African Republic (ZAR); featuring a vast wealth of information on the Afrikaner society during the greatest gold rush in world history and upon the eve of the Second Anglo-Boer War; evidently a special hardcover example bearing the stamp of the chief state printer. 

  A unique example of a very rare chart of South Africa, with a curious Australian connection! Commander John Lamb’s chart showing the 1822 route of his ship ‘Hannah’, fighting the Agulhas Current rounding the Cape of Good Hope; but this example with a manuscript pastedown title regarding the route of the ‘H.M.S. Tamar’, plus manuscript traces of its route,…

A colossal ‘master plan’ of the Kinross Gold Mine in Transvaal (measuring 1.9 x 1.7 metres!), made by engineers around 1970 to showcase every detail of the immense subterranean world of one of South Africa’s largest and most productive gold operations; the mine since became world famous for the 1986 Kinross Mining Disaster, which highlighted the Apartheid regime’s horrific record…

  An extremely rare early Bloemfontein imprint featuring seminal primary sources concerning the end of the Orange Free State-Basotho Wars which secured the Anglo-Afrikaner balance of power in the region, as well as the security of what would become Lesotho, commissioned by the Volksraad of the Orange Free State as a work of ‘intellectual propaganda’ advancing its national claims. 

  A fascinating and lovely artefact from the Siege of Mafeking (1899 - 1900), the highest profile event of the Second Anglo-Boer War and one of the greatest global media spectacles of the fin de siècle era, being a set of 37 diapositive glass photographic slides made from contemporary photos apparently by Frank Whiteley, the Mayor of Mafeking and one…

The album contains 131 photographs from the Second Boer War, as well as images depicting life in South Africa before and after the conflict. It provides valuable insights into this historic period, particularly through a collection of photographs taken in the field with a modern portable roll film camera.v   Album, oblong large 4º, 25 thick grey boards with 131…

  Lithograph with original colour: 18 x 23 cm (7 x 9 inches) (soft fold, slightly age-toned and stained).

  A set of original, exquisitely executed manuscript plans of the blockhouse of the Prince of Wales Battery, one of the key components of the elaborate new defensive system that the British constructed around Cape Town (South Africa) during their first occupation of the colony from 1795 to 1803; drafted by Captain (later Major-General) George Bridges, the commanding Royal Engineer…

  An Exceptionally rare - seemingly unrecorded – and impressively large ‘Sunprint’ or cyanotype map on cotton cloth, depicting Major Robert Lyle McClintock’s advanced topographical survey of the environs of Potchefstroom, South Africa, executed in the period following the Second Anglo-Boer War, made in Potchefstroom after the original survey composed in Pretoria. 

A very rare, large format, separately issued map of  South America, that is perhaps the last great map of the continent to be printed in Ottoman Turkish script, with attractive colours and adorned with the flags of major African states and colonies, published in Istanbul for the Kitabhane-yi Sudi bookshop   Colour off-set print (Good, some light staining, wear and…

Chromolithograph. 8,5 x 13,5 cm (3.3 x 5.3 inches). Slightly stained, overall in a good condition

  A detailed economic atlas for gymnasiums in the Soviet Union, made at the height of the Cold War, showcases the country as a progressive unity, far ahead of the capitalistic countries. 

  An Azerbaijani translation of a Russian short novel by Alexander Neverov was published in Baku as a part of the program to introduce the Soviet proletarian literature to Azerbaijan in the 1920s.   8°, 18 pp., later brown cloth binding with gilt lettering (slightly age-toned and stained, old hand-written price in the inner side of the last board, old signature…

Extremely rare – a lovely gem that represents the first detailed description of the Balearic Islands in Polish, issued in the wake of the Fall of Minorca (1756), by the Jesuit Press of Warsaw, including a fine sheet of maps engraved by Bartłomiej Strachowski.

Extremely rare – a broadside souvenir commemorating the ascension of King Carlos IV and Queen María Luisa to the Spanish throne, published in Málaga by Francisco de la Torre.

  An exquisitely drafted, coloured manuscript plan of the Siege of Badajoz (1812), one of the seminal events of the Peninsular War.

  A stunning example of a rare, separately issued map of Spain and Portugal by Gerard de Jode, was coloured in the late 16th century in the style of the frescoes of the Gallery of Mapsin Vatican.

A lovely little gem – being an exquisitely rendered original manuscript guide to maritime navigation by the Spanish Navy Pilot (later Captain) José Ignacio de la Sierra, a veteran of the Argentine War of Independence; of the most elegant penmanship with a pictorial watercolour title and richly embellished with geometric diagrams and statistical charts, it outlines the principles of course…

  [Cinlerle Muhabere yahud İspiritizm, Fakirizm, Manyetizm / Talking to Spirits or Spiritism, Fakirism, Magnetism]   8°, 2 parts bound in one volume. 239 pp., 256 pp., original dark red cloth boards and brown Morocco spine with raised bands and gold lettering, original tan endpapers (slightly age-toned with light foxing, sporadic underlining and annotations in pencil and ball pen, old…

  8°. 21 pp., [3] advertisements and blank, original pink wrappers with lettering, unbound, as originally published (wrappers slightly dusty and with tiny tears in the margins, some words underlined with old red pencil, otherwise in a good condition).  

  Exceedingly rare – one of only 2 known examples - the first publication of the earliest systematic trigonometrical survey of the south-western coast of Sri Lanka, a self-contained section of a four-part series of charts resulting from Lieutenants Frederick Thomas Powell and Richard Ethersey’s masterly survey of the ‘West Coast of Ceylon’, undertaken upon the orders of the East…

Very Rare - a sheet featuring a pair of charts of Kalpitiya and Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, from Sayer & Bennett’s rare sea atlas ‘The East-India Pilot, or Oriental Navigator’.

  Rare – the only work on the economics and economic history of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) from the early British colonial period, by Anthony Bertolacci, the island’s Corsican-born Auditor-General, featuring information of immense historical value published nowhere else, augmented by the first edition of Captain Gaulterus Schneider’s revolutionary map of Ceylon – the first scientific survey of the island.

Chromolithograph. 9 x 13,5 cm (3.5 x 5.3 inches). Minor staining, overall in a good condition.

A stellar pair of original manuscript sea charts, on a single sheet, being surveys by James Langley, the Master of the ‘HMS Scamander’, showing 1) Gros Islet Bay, a critical fortified harbour near the northern point of St. Lucia that was chosen by the famed Admiral George Rodney a key base of the Royal Navy; and 2) Prince Rupert’s Bay…

  An unusual small early 19th century manuscript map with annotations shows the alleged location of St. Paul’s shipwreck, discussed in Acts of the Saints. 

An attractive large format sea chart of Charlotte Amalie Harbor, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, predicated upon detailed surveys made by Britain’s Royal Navy in 1851, but here updated to 1912, only five years before the Danish Virgin Islands were sold to the United States, featuring a wealth of details on the town and its environs including major public institutions, Jewish…

  A first edition of Wartinger's History of Styria was bound in a contemporary decorative green binding. 

  A pair of fine, separately issued maps that represent the first broadly accurate general  mapping of Southern Egypt and Northern Sudan; important masterpieces of frontier military cartography printed during the Siege of Khartoum, and which served as the definitive maps used by Anglo-Egyptian forces for the remainder of the Mahdist War (1881-99), the epic contest for control of Sudan;…

Charles George GORDON, aka “Gordon of Khartoum” (1833 - 1884).   Manuscript, [Khartoum, Autumn 1879].   An original manuscript of extraordinary quality and interest, being a report written by the legendary British soldier-adventurer Sir Charles George Gordon, aka “Gordon of Khartoum”, in his capacity as Governor-General of Sudan, in the service of the Egyptian Khedive, articulating his well-conceived plan to…

  A rare and important work predicated upon the latest reconnaissance that was the most advanced map of the Khartoum-Omdurman region of Sudan to date, made by the British War Office as a vital strategic aide in the immediate run up to the Battle of Omdurman (September 2, 1898), the decisive showdown of the Mahdist War, the 18-year-long contest for…

  This is a valuable manuscript archive relating to the Suez Canal, the project that utterly revolutionized global transportation, commerce and communications.  It is highlighted by a detailed letter written by one of the major stakeholders in project, written from Alexandria only a few days after Sa’id Pasha, the Viceroy of Egypt, formally approved Ferdinand de Lesseps’s proposal to build…

Regulations for the navigation of the Suez Martime Canal   Large 4°. 13 pp., [3 pp.] with partly colour illustrations, bound with original sting (sporadic old annotations, soft folds, tiny holes and tears in white margins, folds with tears, minor age-toning and staining, mostly to the last page, but overall in a good condition).

A delightful unique collection featuring a manuscript on sundials and two paper instruments, all contained in a contemporary marbled paper case.

Ibn al-Ḥājj al-Tilimsānī al-Maghribī (ابن الحاج التلساني المغربي). [Kitab Shumūs al-anwār wa-kunūz al-asrār al-kubrá / The Book of Suns of Lights and Treasures of Great Secrets] [S.l., S. d., but probably Cairo, ca 1920].  8°, 128 p., contemporary red and black marbled boards, later spine (boards rubbed and lightly scuffed, inside slightly age-toned, with small tears and tiny loss of paper…

Anon. [S. l., S. d., but Ottoman Empire, probably Istanbul, late 19th century]. Black ink on paper, 31,5 x 21 cm (inches), (tiny tears in folds and margins light foxing).

  A rare informative supplement to the 1000 issue of the Ottoman cultural and literary magazine Sevret-i-Funoun contains portraits of the authors of the Ottoman new literature.   Folio. [20] with black and white illustrations, unbound as originally published (minor traces of wear and staining, spine of the first sheet and the inner sheet repaired with an old tape, a…

  RESERVED   An intriguing late colonial era map of Paramaribo, Surinam, in the form of an aerial photograph of the city tinted in green superimposed with information identifying all streets, 208 named key sites, neighborhoods, railways, and bus and ferry routes; created by the colony’s foremost geographer and geologist, Henk Dahlberg, working for the Surinam’s Central Bureau of Air…

A highly, detailed, large format separately issued official plan of Paramaribo, showcasing the capital of Surinam on the eve of the Roaring ’20s, when it was a fast growing mart of commodities and one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world, depicting all significant aspects of infrastructure, land use and key institutions (including churches, mosques, Hindu temples and…

Exceedingly rare - 1 of only 3 known examples - the first ultra-detailed printed city plan of Paramaribo, the capital of Surinam, issued only 12 years after the abolition of slavery, when the city’s was experiencing dramatic physical and population growth due the influx of emancipated slaves migrating from rural plantations; made by Albertus Jacobus Meijer, a tax collector, who…

Postcard. Lithography in colour (Very Good, slightly age-toned, verso small later annotations in the corner, a tiny piece of corner missing) 13 x 9 cm (5.11 x 3.5 inches).

  The scarce World War I edition of the stellar map Heinrich Kiepert originally made to illustrate Max Freiherr von Oppenheim’s travels in the Levant, but here revised as a special ‘Railway Edition’ to depict the extensive, new railroad systems in the region that played major role in the on-going conflict.

Postcard. Lithography in colour (Very Good, slightly age-toned, tiny tears and chips in margins ) 10 x 14cm (5.11 x 3.5 inches).

  A rare pamphlet with Christian content in Syriac language was printed in Aleppo, Syria.

  A pamphlet in Arabic language with a decorative cover was made as a propaganda against the former Syrian president Adib al-Shishakli after his deposition in 1954.   Large 8°. 96 pp., original illustrated wrappers (wrappers slightly worn with tiny scratches and holes in the upper margin on the cover, but otherwise in a good condition).  

  A very rare broadside with Ottoman script showing the siege of Szigetvár was made in the series of large separately published maps by the Turkish War Office the late Hamidian period as a part of intellectual propaganda to revive patriotic sentiment.  

  An early report on the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland, written by a Russian writer Konstantin Simonov, and published in Slovenian language during WWII in Moscow.

  A fascinating account of the German economist and ethnographer Karl Theodor Stöpel’s tour of Taiwan which occurred just after the island was taken over by Japan, during which he witnessed the island rapid’s economic-political transition and the local Chinese’s rebellion against the new regime, as well as being one of the earliest scientific missions deep into the island’s interior,…

  The first economical research of Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic with a large mineralogical map was made by the first Chairman of the Council of People s Commissars of Tajikistan, who was later executed for treason. 

  [Geographical Atlas for Primary Schools. Slovenian Edition]   A rare official atlas for primary schools, issued in Slovenian language by the Fascist Italy, after its taking over the central Slovenian region in World War II in 1941.   Small 8°. 20 pp. with colour maps and black and white photographs, original wrappers with lettering (good used condition with old…

  A colourful map in Estonian language shows Tallinn, the capital of the Estonian Republic, between two world wars, in 1937, three years before the Soviet invasion. The map also includes streets, which were planned to be constructed in the following years.

  A collection of folk tales, printed in the Tamil language by the state school for education of civil servants.   12°, [4 pp.], 176 pp., contemporary marble paper boards, brown goat spine with traces of a paper label (binding slightly rubbed, inside in a good and clean condition, old annotations in pencil and brown ink to the front blank…

A seemingly unrecorded special ‘emergency’ issue of Max Moisel’s groundbreaking map of Deutsch-Ostafrika (today’s mainland Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi), issued in haste by British War Office immediately following the outbreak of World War I, whereupon East Africa became a surprisingly intense conflict theatre; the present example bearing evidence of field use, featuring contemporary manuscript additions.   Photolithographic print, with contemporary…